Exhibit showcases Chihuahua art

Updated 2:07 pm, Friday, February 15, 2013

Miguel Valverde's “Hágase la Lucha” is a neon work of a Mexican wrestler's mask.

Miguel Valverde's “Hágase la Lucha” is a neon work of a Mexican wrestler's mask.

Photo: Courtesy Miguel Valverde

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Clarissa Gutierrez Carrasco is co-curator of the Institute of Texan Cultures' “Arte Chihuahua,” on display through May 5.

Clarissa Gutierrez Carrasco is co-curator of the Institute of Texan Cultures' “Arte Chihuahua,” on display through May 5.

Photo: Helen L. Montoya / Conexión

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Luis Fernando Safa Herrera's ink on paper "Puro Plomo" is one of 37 works featured in "Arte Chihuahua" at the Institute of Texan Cultures.

Luis Fernando Safa Herrera's ink on paper "Puro Plomo" is one of 37 works featured in "Arte Chihuahua" at the Institute of Texan Cultures.

Photo: Courtesy Of The Artist

Exhibit showcases Chihuahua art

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There is a sense of discovery about “Arte Chihuahua,” an eclectic exhibition of 37 works by 25 artists from the northwestern Mexican state that we, rightly or wrongly, associate with the media blitz of drug trafficking, torture, murder and midnight river crossings.

There is none of that (well, very little) in the exhibition, which, if nothing else, should convince visitors to the Lower Gallery at the Institute of Texan Cultures that contemporary art is alive and thriving in Chihuahua.

Chosen from more than 70 submissions, these nearly 40 works tell the other side of the story of a resilient people, a land of hope and survival, in paintings, photography and three-dimensional works ranging from carved wood to blazing pink neon.

Martha Carolina Legarreta Rothe's rustic framed wall pieces — with a corazón, or heart, sculpted from red laminate wrapped in copper wire, and a black bird, also formed from wire, perched on a pair of old skeleton keys (“las llaves del viento,” the keys of the wind) — have a timeless, transcending beauty, as if they may have been discovered in an abandoned hacienda.

At the other end of the spectrum, pop culture rears its head, almost literally, in the form of Miguel Valverde's electrifying “Hágase la Lucha,” a Mexican wrestler's mask in a neon so bright you'll wish you'd worn shades.

Eloquent and graceful, Arturo Rodríguez Torija's “La Flama” is “Arte Chihuahua's” signature image, a photograph shot at a slow shutter speed of a dancer with her head thrown back ecstatically, arms raised like angel wings. The blurred image, which resembles an orange flame, is striking and soulful.

Luis Fernando Safa Herrera, in his early 20s, the youngest artist in the exhibition, confronts the police state along the border in “Puro Plomo,” an ink-on-paper work depicting a helmeted authority figure literally bending a prisoner to his will.

And Michelle Páez's “14,” a mixed-media painting with earrings, necklaces and broaches attached to the wood surface, then drenched in dripping orange, brown and yellow paint, is part of a series on sexual orientation, the title referring to the age at which a person knows he or she might be different from others.

More Information

http://www.texancultures.com/chihuahua/

“I wanted to show another face of Chihuahua,” Gutierrez Carrasco says. “Every single piece in the exhibition has many layers to it.”

“Arte Chihuahua” came about after conversations between UTSA President Ricardo Romo and Mexican Consul Enrique Cortazar when they served on the board of directors of the Instituto Cultural de Mexico.

Gutierrez Carrasco, an intern to Almeida, calls working on the exhibition, which continues through May 5, “one of the best experiences I've ever had.”

“The artists are so thrilled to be a part of this,” Almeida added. “I think there was a feeling that they were not really considered to be on the artistic map.”